


The Fall of Nabudis

by MYuzuki



Series: Tales of a Nabradian Hunter [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fall of Nabudis, Gen, Nabudis, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon, nabradia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27843922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MYuzuki/pseuds/MYuzuki
Summary: Kaia isn't entirely unaccustomed to receiving letters from her father (he sends a few every year, scattered across the months) but she is rather surprised by the fact that he wants her to come speak to him in Nabudis.
Series: Tales of a Nabradian Hunter [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2038138
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	The Fall of Nabudis

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be the fifth drabble in the series, but as luck would have it I finished writing it before the other ones, lol. Which means I'm going to post it now and worry about sorting out the series order later, haha. Anyway, all you really need to know is that this drabble chronologically takes place before Trouble in the Hills (and by extension the rest of the present-day adventures Kaia's currently having). Chronologically, this takes place before most of the series (specifically, two years before the primary plot of the game).

**The Fall of Nabudis**

* * *

Kaia isn't entirely unaccustomed to receiving letters from her father (he sends a few every year, scattered across the months) but she is rather surprised by the fact that he wants her to come speak to him in Nabudis.

She hasn't been to the Nabradian royal palace since the summer of her sixteenth year, after all, not since she'd learned the truth of her birth from her uncle Agdi and gone storming into the palace to demand answers from a father she didn't remember.

Honestly, she's not entirely sure why he wants to speak to her personally now; they get along well enough in the letters they exchange, but any sort of face-to-face meeting is likely to be supremely awkward at best, if not downright uncomfortable.

It's not entirely Solvarr's fault; she knows that, for all that she'd blamed him for abandoning her when she'd first learned that he was her true father and not some nameless merchant who'd walked out on her mother. He'd been grieving her mother's death and trying to fend off the nobles who were pressuring him to remarry a woman of noble blood in order to produce a 'proper' heir to the Nabradian throne.

And then Agdi had appeared, Aesa's beloved older brother swooping in with a righteous fury, demanding custody of his sister's child because he did not trust the king of Nabradia to keep Kaia -then only a toddler of two years- safe when his own wife has succumbed to a mysterious illness under suspicious circumstances while under his care and protection.

And so Solvarr had handed Kaia over to Agdi, giving her up.

Part of Kaia is still furious and hurt over it, but the part of her that runs on pragmatism understands why he'd done it.

And the part of her that loves her younger half-brother -bright, brave Rasler who'd met her once as a boy of twelve and then come to find her as a teenager to demand answers for why she'd never come back- doesn't want to nurse that old grudge, not when all it will do is hurt everyone involved in the whole mess.

So she doesn't fuss about the fact that she's not in the line of succession for a throne that is technically hers by birthright (not that she actually _wants_ it, of course; Rasler is much more suited for leading their country, while she is by nature more at home in the wilds of the world, stalking monsters and protecting helpless travelers) and does her best to not stir up any trouble.

There's plenty of trouble to be had already, after all, with war looming ever-present on the horizon as Archadia advances towards their borders, getting closer and closer every day as they hunger for more and more territory.

(It isn't fair, she can't help but think, that Nabradia is being forced into a war; they've always kept mostly to themselves, showing no aggression toward any of their neighboring nations and even offering alliances whenever possible. It isn't right that Archadia is set on subjugating them. It isn't fair.

And yet here they are, facing down against a power-hungry Empire with one of the most formidable military forces in all of Ivalice. Because the world isn't fair, and perhaps she's past the age when she should have realized that but the truth of it still stings. )

In any case, she makes her way to Nabudis. First, she writes her father a brief response to his letter, sending it on ahead with a chocobo messenger, and then begins her trek from the Mosphoran Highwaste to the capital of her homeland.

The journey to Nabudis is a scenic one, if incredibly dangerous when done on foot courtesy of many and varied beasts that roam the region, and she wouldn't deny the relief that rises in her heart when she finally gets closer to the capital, her journey carrying to the edge of the Salikawood after a slight detour that had her clearing out a nest of marlboros for a merchant caravan that had been passing through the Diverging Way as they made their way towards the Phon Coast.

In peaceful times, the paths through Salikawood are well-maintained by Nabradian rangers who are tasked with keeping the wooden walkways clear of monsters and safe for travel, but given that it's war-time now most of the able-boded warriors have been relocated to the various border skirmishes that have broken out between their kingdom and the Empire.

As a result, she doesn't see a single ranger on her way through the woods, and has to fend off a variety of beasts as a result; it's no particular hardship for her, because though she is alone she's not unaccustomed to battle the way many travelers are. She's a hunter, after all, by blood and by choice and as such she's better prepared to deal with things like being ambushed by half a dozen Antares, the swarming mantids slashing at her with their scythe-like claws until she dispatches them with a sweeping wind spell and a few ell-placed jabs with her spear.

All the same, she's glad when the trees begin to thin out just a little, the tangle of branches overhead receding the closer she gets to the capital.

(Her feelings about the palace her father lives in are complicated, to say the very least, but this time she thinks she'll be more happy than upset to walk those gilded halls, even if she doesn't intend to stay for very long.)

She's just passing out of the fringes of the woods when she spots plumes of smoke ahead of her, rising from the city; before she can even fully process that, she hears the muffled roar of airship engines overheard, and she cranes her neck back to peer at them, heart jumping up into her throat when she sees the blood-red sigil of the Empire painted on their hulls.

All she has time to think about is how she's grateful that Rasler is safe in Rabanastre with his new wife, and then there's an explosion overheard, light and fire and so much magickal energy that it feels like the whole world is drowning in Mist, bright and burning.

She throw up a protective barrier on instinct, the incantation for a Shell spell tumbling out of her mouth without conscious thought, but even that crumples under the onslaught of whatever the Archadians have unleashed, and the energy cascading through the atmosphere swirls around like a hurricane, ripping apart the capital of her homeland before her very eyes even as a flicker of that same fiery Mist lashes out, catching her across the chest and sending her flying through the air.

She has a split-second to feel the impact when she crashes into a thick tree, starbursts of pain detonating along her shoulders and spine as the wood and bark splinter around her, and then everything goes dark.


End file.
